Peace Efforts in Ireland

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 9, 1 March 1923, Page 11

Peace Efforts in Ireland

MR. COSGRAVE OUTLINES VITAL CONDITIONS. President Cosgrave has communicated to the editor of the Manchester Guardian, and through him to the English people, the following new year message: On this the first New Year's Day of her freedom the Irish Free State sends greeting to her many friends in England. In the past our countries have been sundered by the strife of centuries, but, thank God, this strife is now ended, and we are free to promote that friendship between us which the common people of both countries have always desired. But while our relations with our neighbors are of the happiest we at home have not yet succeeded in shaking ourselves quite free from the unrest which is, perhaps, a natural relic of the bitterness of the past, and which is common to all countries just emerging from conditions of war. A handful of our people took it upon themselves to oppose by force the will of the nation. But all their desperate efforts to throw us again into war with Britain have been countered, and with returning stability it is now possible to view our troubles in their true perspective and to look optimistically and with * calm confidence to the future. In the new year we hope to reap the full fruit of the Treaty, in honoring which we have lost two beloved leaders and many of our noblest sons. We hope to secure the unity of our nation by justice and toleration and to restore to our country .a condition of lasting peace and prosperity. To you and to our many friends in England who have supported us so whole-heartedly in the past, and to the many exiled children of our own race who so willingly shared in the sacrifices of their motherland, we send our heartfelt greetings for a happy new year.

Mr. George Russell (“A.E.”) has addressed an “open letter to Irish Republicans” appealing to them for peace and to allow the democratic solution to have its way, and that it is a better way than the way of force.

The same idea is expressed by Mr. Cosgrave in a statement in which he lays it down as a fundamental condition of peace that Parliament, as representing the people, must be the sole sovereign authority. Peace on any other basis would be a false peace endangering the whole future of the country.

Mr. Thomas Johnson, secretary of the Irish Labor party, in reply to a resolution of Kildare workers calling upon Labor to withdraw from the Dail as a protest against the Government’s policy of dealing with the Republican rebels, says: —“We have decided to use Parliamentary machinery for carrying out the will of the people. If after trial, this machinery proves a failure, then will be the time to talk of withdrawing from Parliament.”

Mr. de Valera and other prominent Republicans attended a meeting of the "Second Dail" in Dublin. There was no interference by military or police. The threatened strike on the railways has been averted and negotiations are continuing. The Great Southern and Western Railway Company is to come under Government control as the result of the intervention of the Free State Government in the railway wages dispute. The men have now been asked to accept a wage reduction of 2s per week. IRREGULARS MUST YIELD. The opening of the new year finds peace movements making appearance here and there in Ireland (writes a special correspondent in Dublin, of the Manchester Guardian). Mr. George Russell's recent appeal does not stand alone. Various bodies of men who belonged to the old Republican army which fought' against the "Black-and-Tans" are banded together in organisations which have been neutral in the struggle between the Free State and the Irregulars. They are now urging both sides to come to some understanding. "'"Y,,

Only a few days ago a body of this sort in Dublin asked for peace, and now there comes a letter to President Cosgrave from a similar body in Mid-Tipperary. ■" The resolution these men have passed reads as follows:

Ex-officers of the Mid-Tipperary "Brigade hereby call upon the Government and the Republican leaders to meet together in conference with a view to ending the internecine warfare that is now going on in Ireland, and that is bringing so much ruin and loss of many valuable lives to Ireland. We also call upon all neutral officers all over the country who so bravely fought the battle for Irish freedom against England to take joint action, and we feel confident that in doing so they will be voicing the genuine feelings of the Irish people, and that such action will have the effect of bringing about a happy and lasting peace. We also appeal to the Government to cease carrying out executions pending the holding of the conference.

President Cosgrave’s answer is worth giving fully: Before you go any further in your endeavors to secure

peace it is well that you should understand the position clearly. The basis for peace must

“That the treaty shall stand without abrogation, explicit or implied, of any part of it; that the Oireachtas established under the Treaty and Constitution shall be the sole sovereign authority within the jurisdiction assigned to it in those instruments; that there shall be no armed force or military organisation and no carrying or keeping of arms or material of war except such as the same authority shall authorise or permit. That there shall be no claim on the part of any person or persons coming under a proposed peace to exercise powers of government or to act so as to threaten or endanger life or property or livelihood without or contrary to the same author; that there shall be no interference with elections.” Without these fundamental conditions any so-called peace can only be a false peace endangering the whole future of Ireland and removing the hope of national unity. Hopeful Signs. Among the Irregulars themselves, despite the ncnpossumus attitude of Mr. de Valera, the seeking for a '"ay of peace is gaining ground. One is speaking, of murse, not of the wanton plunderers and destroyers but of Vi men among the Irregulars who are ensnared neither by love of disorder nor by Mr. de Valera’s tenuous net of verbiage. It would be false and foolish to pretend that these Irregulars could at the moment make a peace within the letter and spirit of Mr. Cosgrave’s communication given above. But it is hopeful to note that they want peace and that they are definitely seeking a way to it. Thus, although there is no sign of a diminution of sporadic outrage, and though both sides put publicly on the armor of an unshakable resolve, the new year brings a hopeful reaching out from this side and that for-a more reasonable way. And until that is found there can be no health in the Irish State. The Cabinet must remain prisoners in a fortress, the Parliament must be a rump, its decrees must not only lack the consent but must encounter the hostility of a considerable and determined section of the community.